I even installed Startup Auditor, which claims to stop apps from starting on their own. It’s been spotty: SA seems to disappear itself sometimes, and I often find that Pandora, Winamp, Google Maps, Android Market, and others are loaded, according to Advanced Task Killer.
Should I care? Are they only loaded into RAM and using very little battery? I know that using Google Maps or Navigation in real time seems to be a big battery drain, but maybe this is different.
The issue over app killers and such has been controversial pretty much since Android app came out. I think the consensus today is that auto-app killers are unnecessary and sometimes bad. Those apps in the background will use some battery, but it’s a pretty small amount. If you go to settings -> about phone -> battery use, you can see how much bhattery each app has been using. In general, it’s pretty small compared to the actual display and cell connection.
If you’re uising android version 2.2 or higher, don’t use an app killer. Your system is more efficient at controlling things.
I have found that Winamp is a pretty hefty drain on the battery, personally. I always make sure to select Quit from the menu at the top screen of the app rather than just hitting Home or backing out of the app.
But no, don’t use a task killer if you’re on 2.2.
This is the Droid 3, which is about 1 month old. It has 2.3.4. I don’t see “battery use” under “about phone”, or anywhere else that seems logical.
From the home screen— Menu>settings>Battery Manager
To access Battery Manager:
From the home screen, touch Menu > Settings > Battery Manager
■Battery Profile: 3 automatic profiles – Performance (highest user of battery power), Smart (medium setting), and Battery Saver Mode (uses least amount of battery power)
■Battery Profile Options: Manually select certain options to reduce battery usage.
■Battery Use: provides current view of what features or applications are using the highest percentage of your battery
Tips to extend battery life:
■Select a shorter backlight duration
■Lower the display brightness
■Use the AC adapter to charge your phone whenever possible
■Turn Bluetooth off when not in use
■Turn Wi-Fi off when not in use
■Certain applications may be drawing excessive battery power. If you are experiencing shorter battery life after downloading an application try uninstalling the application.
■Close any third party applications running in the background
■Playing music, videos and viewing images in your phone will affect your battery life.
Using the battery icon to access the usage statistics, I see that it’s things like the radio, wifi, and Bluetooth that were using the most battery. The only standard app that even registered was Maps, and that was 2%.
So, fellow Android users, I found that I can turn off Bluetooth, and I set wifi to only be on when the screen is on. If you’re not torrenting to your phone or something, why do you need wifi on when you’re not using the screen? I also pushed back the syncing of things like Facebook and email to only every hour.
I do have another question, though: How do I put in more email accounts for Folder sync? My main gmail account is not listed there.
Your major battery killers are the screen intensity, the GPS and Bluetooth.
Clear off an entire row on your mainpage. Press and hold until the menu appears. Select Widgets. Scrool to Power Control and select it. From that one widget, you can easily turn on/off various functions.
From left to right, they are : wi-fi, Bluetooth, GPS, Autosync, screen brightness
I uninstalled my App Killer and started using this. Since I did, my battery rarely goes down below 80% in a full day.
I’ve never turned off wifi so I don’t know for sure what will be effected. But some reasons I want wifi on when I’m not using the screen are:
[ul]
[li]To allow e-mail to be “pushed” to the phone.[/li][li]To allow my podcast software to check for and download new episodes.[/li][li]Streaming audio. I don’t want that to stop when the screen turns off.[/li][li]To sync my music library to my home PC using DoubleTwist AirSync.[/li][li]To allow apps to be updated automatically.[/li][li]Downloading big files. Your screen may time out before the download is complete.[/li][/ul]
On my Android 2.2 phone: Open the Gmail app, go to Menu -> Accounts and tap on “Add account.”
On my tablet, it’s not under the Gmail client, it’s under the main system Settings, under “Accounts and sync.”
Ironically, the gmail account under the GMail app is NOT the one shown in Folder Sync. I have a new question: What is Folder Sync? I thought it had to do with syncing to the online version, but I do see an email I sent from the phone in the Sent box for the online version of the account NOT shown in Folder Sync. So what does Folder Sync do?
I’ve owned 4 Android devices and have never heard of “Folder Sync”. Maybe it’s a third-party app?
By the way I just noticed my Android 2.2 phone also has an “Accounts & sync settings” under Settings (OS settings, not the gmail app). I can’t remember what the relationship is between the accounts listed here and what’s listed under the Gmail settings; I suspect they’re just 2 ways to access the same settings.
I haven’t owned an Android yet, although that’s about to change. With mobile phones generally, including my current Windows smart phone, however, I’ve usually found the biggest battery drain to be anything involving the screen. If I just listen to music or other audio, whether streamed or stored, and let the screen go dark, the battery discharge cycle lasts a lot longer than if, in addition to playing audio, I do anything involving screen displays.
Those are for selecting whether to sync calendar, contacts and gmail for each account. The gmail settings only affect the mail preferences for each account.
I’ve found that using the 3G connection on my phone eats the battery about twice as fast as WiFi.
What is Auto Syncing when that function runs?
I have my screen brightness (Droid X) down to about 15%, and set my screen to never turn off by itself. I just turn the screen off manually with one click of a button, and if I forget, no biggie. I think it’s doubled my battery life, and I adjusted to the dim screen very quickly. I just set it to full, for a test, and it blinded me.
Joe
Unless an app is in the foreground, it’s using almost no battery power (there are exceptions, which I will get to).
Background services may use a bit of power, but they’re really idle about 99% of the time.
One of the fundamental rules of Android app design is “don’t shut down your app”. This makes switching between apps fast, and allows an app to easily maintain its state. When an app isn’t “active”, it remains in memory, but the system is doing almost nothing with it.
The big drains on a phone’s battery are the display and “radio” features. The display is the biggest one by far. The best way around this is to avoid playing games on your phone while it’s not plugged in! Notice also that Maps/Navigation will seem to be a big battery drain because they’re usually used in conjunction with WiFi/cell data or GPS or both. Bluetooth is also a power sink.
iPhone probably does better, but that’s because Apple controls everything related to it. One can’t necessarily blame Android for poor power consumption, because a lot of the problems come from the manufacturer’s hardware and low-level drivers.
Keep in mind that phones have really really small batteries. It may be a while before we see phones that can provide full functionality for an entire day without a recharge. I regularly plug my Android phone into a charger unless it’s in my pocket. If you’re around and about a lot, you may want to invest in a auxiliary battery pack like those made by New Trent. They’re about the size of a man’s wallet, and they’ll fully recharge a phone using a micro USB cable.